Things to Know Before Hiring a Patent

Attorney

Never hire an attorney without an end-

to-end cost estimate

Patent rights last for up to 20 years from the date the idea was first filed. And it could

be 3 or more years before a patent is granted. Given such long time frames, it is in

your best interests to ask your patent attorney to give a ballpark estimate of the costs

that you would incur during this entire period.

Don’t Fall for Cheap Hourly Rates

Let’s say you have two attorneys, one charges $250 an hour while a more

experienced attorney charges $500 an hour. Often the higher rate comes with better

efficiency such that a better draft might be done in far less time. Both options

typically will promise a similar writing cost of $8K-15K depending on technology area

and complexity or lack thereof.

Look for Innovation Attorney Fit

Now, you would want a patent attorney who has experience dealing with blockchain

& financial services to quickly understand your innovation over what the big

financial firms have already filed in this space and, if so, what should your filing

strategy be.

Know Your Attorney’s Strategy

A good attorney would listen to all of the above, ask questions about your business

model, review the landscape to find out what your competitors are doing, what kind

of patents are they filing, and would then come up with a pragmatic patent strategy

to provide the most value for the least cost.

Choose an Attorney Who Success Rate

is Greater than Industry Average

In terms of costs, most counsel are within 20% of each other when writing a patent

and doing each round of argument, but the better performing attorneys will always

cost less when yield is taken into account.

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